The Mirror Ball Trophy, all shiny and bright
Will be awarded to the winners Tuesday night

Who will win, who will place, who will show
Katherine and Mark will sparkle, be all aglow

William and Cheryl, shaking hips to the beat
Will Donald and Peta be able to take the heat

All three couples will race to the finish line
All will put on their best, looking mighty fine

The noise will crescendo, the rafters will shake
The ballroom will explode, the win is at stake

The freestyles amaze, dazzle, rock and roll
The dancers bring forth their heart, their soul

Tom and Brooke, the winners they proclaim
Couples nervously waiting to hear the name

The race for the trophy, a dream come true
The winners, showered in confetti of blue

The Mirror Ball is awarded for another season
Which only serves to give us another reason

To tune in again, the show will return in the fall
For another chance to win the next Mirror Ball!

To help us introduce this post, above is a Dancing With The Stars finale poem written by PureDWTS reader Lois gearing us up for tonight. Perfect Lois!! Thanks!

Also, Cameron Matheson of Good Morning America goes into rehearsals to do the same. You can see them practicing on the Dance Floor. The couples give us some teasers (William says Donald will be taking off his pants, lol) as well as tell us why people should vote for them. This is fun…

Also, if you haven’t been following Sherri Shepherd at twitter, be sure you are as she has been tweeting some fun pictures of the cast rehearsing for this week’s finale dances. Below are just a few of them. Be sure to check out her twitter account here for more.

ADDING: TV Guide has a cool commentary up today of what to watch for in tonight’s dances on Dancing With The Stars. They also run through each couples strengths and what they need to work on. Below is what they wrote for Donald Driver. You can read more of what they wrote for Katherine and William at the link.

DONALD DRIVER

For Him : Charm, Packer Nation and sympathy. Despite a handful of strong and dynamic performances, the judges have been underscoring Driver. He also arguably deserved his long-desired perfect score of 30 two weeks ago for his jive trio, but Len Goodman continues to hold back the 10 paddle while over-scoring some other pairs. The underscoring has angered a lot of fans and has not gone unnoticed by the pros.

Needs to work on: Getting out of his own way. Driver’s so desperate for a 30 that he sometimes goes into overdrive (no pun intended) when he dances, which causes him to either slip up or tighten up. Forget about the triple 10s and just dance! If you perform it, they will come.

Why he might win: He’s a better dancer than both Katherine and William; he’s technically sharp and an electric crowd-pleaser. His own eight-pack also doesn’t hurt and neither does his massive Green Bay Packers fan base. Plus: The fact that he’s been a diehard Dancing fan since the first season — and is not doing this to shill something — is surely endearing to viewers. Football players have a great record on the show too, but while there have been many who have made it to the business end of the season, only two have won: Emmitt Smith and Hines Ward. Could Driver be the third?

Watch out for: His freestyle. We all know that’s the make-it-or-break-it dance, and the pressure will be on his partner Peta Murgatroyd, who’s untested in her first final in two seasons against two two-time winner pros, to deliver a routine worthy of Quickie’s talent.

ADDING #2: More rehearsal footage and interviews. This time from ET Online…

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

Stuart Brazell And Elena Grinenko of Dance Junkies TV talk of the importance of technique and if the judges Know what they are talking about. If you missed Part 1 of this series, be sure to see it here. Elena gets as frustrated as we do sometimes when the judges “pick” at the couples.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

So here we are… we are now officially through “two-thirds” of the season and I’ve been updating and cleaning up my spreadsheet, so that way I could create graphs for you to see how the predicted scores compared with the actual scores of the celebrities that have left us since Week 4 (eventually I’ll update the previous scorecard to include graphs for the first few weeks of the season).

In case you have forgotten from the last time, the initials “P – A – D” are simply:
– Predicted: this is the original calculated predicted scores
– Actual: this is the score that the celeb/pro pairing actually received on the show
– Difference: is the point difference between the predicted and actual scores

So if you would recall from Week 4:

I mentioned that there was a 2 point difference with some scores being close/spot on versus scores that were way off. For three weeks Katherine/Mark was getting the largest score difference (5 – 5 – 6) and now they have virtually none.

So far Gavin seems the most steady to history with another zero (0) point difference week.

There also seems to be a shift happening with the largest point difference:
– Roshon/Chelsie: 5 points
– Donald/Peta: 4 points

Did this affect standings of the couples that were in danger on Week 4? Well it depends on how you look at it. Roshon/Chelsie had a massive point difference and they were in the Bottom Two. While Sherri/Val had the average point difference of two and they were sent packing.

Speaking of Sherri, let’s look at how her actual scores on the show compared with the predicted scores over the four weeks she was on the show:

My life can be summed up in the following two quotes: 1) "I am married to engineering and am its faithful wife by day, but at night my wanderlust takes hold and the arts becomes my jealous paramour." and... 2) "Engineering is my safety net. Writing is my passion. Acting is my escape when the other two become too much." So where does dancing fit in? Pretty much anywhere at this point... =)

I’m the only one in my family that is into DWTS. This season, my little sister decided to start watching because she knows I work on two websites that are related to it. She’s taken to texting me during the show, but we have little to no discussion about it on a regular basis. But you can tell we’re from the same family. 🙂 Here is a direct quote from my little sister regarding the team dances:

Please mention on your websites that the gratuitous shirtlessness is getting ridiculous and kind of insulting – as if they take off their shirts and we silly women would be dumb enough to vote for that reason alone. Pathetic manipulation pisses me off. Just dance, stupid.

And that pretty much sums up the team dances. She and I neither live in the same town, nor talk on twitter. She wasn’t even a fan of DWTS before this season. Team Tango was so superior to Team Paso that I can’t even believe there was only one point between them. Mark, Derek and Kym’s fingerprints were all over that…saw some of Derek/Kym’s standard moves for teams with a few new nuances that seemed like Mark. Have no idea if Chelsie is in there or not, but it’s clear that all four of them worked in harmony – with the blessing of their celeb partners. Mark can’t get Katherine to do something, so Derek gives it a try. Nice team work. Team Paso, on the other hand, seems to have gotten caught up in their own hype – and frankly, kudos to the men (William and Donald) who made at least token protests against going shirtless. How about you choreograph the damn dance AND pay attention to your partners??? It was sloppy, it borrowed from last season’s team Paso…it just wasn’t as good as it was scored. You know, I have no problem with shirtless men – Derek never did it before his Lambada with Joanna but has done it occasionally after that; maybe once or twice a season. Never really minded when Maks did it, even though I likely made several sarcastic comments about it. 🙂 Dmitry?? Always has his shirt way open – Always – he’s very proud. Yes, I do tend to mock that. But last night it seemed like their WHOLE entire goal was to get the shirts off those men, in hopes that “us stupid wimmen” would just fall over, enraptured. Ummm…no. It was SO predictable that it annoyed me.

Anyway, I was rather shocked that Katherine did the rumba that I expected but was scored rather appropriately. Shocking. 🙂 Major props to her and Mark for their lovely reaction to Maria and Derek’s dance and scores – I love seeing stuff like that. It’s a shame the dance duel works against that sort of camaraderie. I am in agreement with Courtney when she says that some couples (Melissa and Maks in particular) got totally screwed by the music. Derek and Maria worked very well within their musical framework, but I don’t see a way that Maks could do the same for his dance. Don’t know what the hell was going on during Roshon’s dance, but I don’t feel he was totally underscored this week…but who can say when several seconds were lost with a view of the giant mirror ball?

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

PopTvDotCom (who have a great reputation of being nice and loved by fans, cast, and pros alike. Be sure you are following them at You Tube), has some great footage of the couples leaving Team rehearsals last night. They are all pumped and said they have good teams (More on this later with Courtney! 😉 ). They have some great things to say about Gladys as well.

They caught Gladys and Tristan after the show as well. Gladys has a message for her fans.

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

“I adored watching Gladys this season and think her pairing with Tristan was magic. He knew exactly how to present her each week, always with loads of respect and just the right amount of sauciness.” ~Cidra

And so we say good-bye to the beautiful and legendary Gladys Knight and her sweet Irish partner Tristan MacManus on Dancing With The Stars!! We all knew we were in for something very special when Gladys agreed to do the show, didn’t we?! I don’t think I’ll ever forget our reactions upon hearing she was going to dance. I think what I loved the most about having Gladys on Dancing With The Stars is seeing that radiating and unique “soul” and “heart of gold” and how “down to earth” she was in a more personal way. It’s no wonder why she is called the “Empress of Soul”. What’s more, I feel like she’s stamped a little piece of herself magically on all of us showing us that in a deeper way. So, thank you Gladys and thanks to Tristan as well for helping her to bring that “Empress of Soul” into her dancing now too.

So, let’s get to some interviews after the elimination from Jimmy Kimmel, On The Red Carpet, and Entertainment Tonight. We’ll try and get their Good Morning America interview up as soon as possible (if there is one?).

Their Good Morning America is now up at ABC. You can veiw it here. Love the bit about BUBBA and how it was Tristan’s idea to call him in for the package. Thanks to @TristanMacManusFans at twitter for the heads up!!

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

Court here, subbing in for Heidi, who is boozin’ it up in the mountains or something. 😛 I wonder if drinking at a higher altitude gives you more of a buzz…

…well, now that I’ve wasted enough space so as not to catch the ire of some of the Twitter folks who haven’t watched the show yet, I can say that it ended up being Gladys & Roshon in the dance duel, with Roshon being saved by the judges and Gladys sent home. And despite the fishiness of having 4 couples in jeopardy, there was no double elimination, as was previously rumored.

So how did our predictions stack up?

Heidi: Assumed there would be a single elimination, with Maria & Roshon in the bottom 2 and Roshon getting saved after the duel. Also thought there might be a chance that it would be Melissa & Roshon in the bottom 2, with Roshon still getting saved.

Courtney: Assumed there would be a double elimination, and predicted Gladys to go home outright, with Roshon & Maria duking it out in the jive duel with Maria ultimately getting saved. Thought there was a minute chance of Melissa landing in the duel with Roshon, in which case Roshon would be saved.

I’ve gotta say – even though I think Gladys was probably the weakest dancer still left in the competition and it was her time to go, I feel so bad that they made her do the damn jive duel…that was just cruel. But she impressed the hell out of me with the effort she gave – it was a much closer duel than I expected. But overall, I’m glad Roshon is safe for another week – even though it scares the crap outta me that he still landed in the bottom 2, with all of the outrage I saw here at Pure and on Twitter over how truly SCREWED he got by the judges this week.

So we didn’t get a double elim after all. Part of me is relieved, as it probably saved us from losing Roshon and possibly Maria or Melissa; but part of me is also a bit worried for next week, as it’s the team dances, and one team is going to end up with 4 couples while the other ends up with 3. The last time that happened was season 9, and the team with more couples came into the team dance at a big disadvantage and basically got trounced by the team that only had 3 couples. More couples = more need for synchronization = less room for error = more egos. And yet another tricky little way for TPTB to give the edge to some while shafting others. Heidi, where are you? Bring us booze. 🙂

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.

Boy, what a crap ass night. And yet, extremely predictable. I have to wonder if Katherine just isn’t getting the votes because she was the biggest example of over scoring last night, by far. Unless you like Vanilla Sambas. I restrict my vanilla to COFFEE, thank you. 🙂 William was too, but he actually got critiqued. Mark and Maks go back to their old ways…Donald and Roshon are, once again, under scored for the benefit of the favored children…it was an all around disappointing night.

I have to laugh at anyone who believes that Derek is favored – judges kinda made a fool of you, didn’t they. LOL. Yep, Maria is in trouble tonight. I think she might pull it out, but she is the least well known of the non-judge’s pets of this season. Weellll…

Let’s look at the couples and their percentages of the total:

The Judges Scores and Percentages

Place

Celebrity

Score

Percentage

1.

Katherine

39

15.12

2.

Jaleel

37

14.34

3.

William

36

13.95

4.

Donald

34

13.18

5.

Maria

30

11.63

5.

Melissa

30

11.63

7.

Roshon

28

10.85

8.

Gladys

24

9.30

Gladys is, once again, at the bottom of the leader board. The question is….does she have the juice to pull it out tonight? Last week, Gavin and Melissa were both below her in scores, but Gavin and Jaleel were in the bottom two. Melissa only needed 4,500 (chump change) votes to pull ahead of Gladys and 13,400 to pull ahead of Jaleel. Gladys only needed 8,900 votes per million votes cast last week for Jaleel to then fall into the bottom two – this week it’s a lot more and she doesn’t have the protection of Melissa and Gavin being below her. What has to happen for Gladys to stick for another week?? She has to stay out of the bottom two for one thing. For that to happen, she needs TWO of the following things:

– Gladys needs to get 15,500 more votes per million votes cast than Roshon, OR;

– Gladys needs to get 23,260 more votes per million votes cast than either Melissa or Maria, OR;

– Gladys needs to get 38,760 more votes per million votes cast than Donald, OR;

– Gladys needs to get 46,520 more votes per million votes cast then William, OR;

– Gladys needs to get 50,400 more votes per million votes cast than Jaleel, OR;

– Gladys needs to get 58,150 more votes per million votes cast than Katherine.

Clearly, Katherine is going nowhere. Again I wonder if she’s not getting the votes because she’s not that much better than Donald. Now, Gladys can get past Roshon (and this is likely why we have the dance duel, cuz I think it would be easy), but whether she can get past Maria and Melissa is a mystery that will be solved tonight. They have insulated Jaleel, our other bottom two dweller, pretty well. Will he end up in the bottom two again? Read on.

Roshon is next on our list – and on a night when I thought he danced better than William and Katherine both. Roshon has been in the bottom two…and on judges scores alone, he’s in the bottom two again. But is he when it comes to the combined total?? Based on the judges scores, and assuming that Gladys gets the votes she needs, Roshon needs TWO of the following in order to be safe:

– Roshon needs to get 7,760 more votes per million votes cast than either Melissa or Maria, OR;

– Roshon needs to get 23,260 more votes per million votes cast than Donald, OR;

– Roshon needs to get 31,010 more votes per million votes cast then William, OR;

– Roshon needs to get 34,890 more votes per million votes cast than Jaleel, OR;

– Roshon needs to get 42,650 more votes per million votes cast than Katherine.

Gotta say, I’m not really sure what’s going to happen here. Roshon has fallen into the bottom two before, when tied with Maria and four points ahead of Melissa. Now, he’s a couple points below both of them. So, have the Roshon fans mustered enough votes to make up a defict where there wasn’t one before?? I kinda doubt it, but you never know. Roshon got hosed so his fans might have really gotten it together. Read more..

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)

In Part 2 of our media postings today, Louis Van Amstel reviews the night at ABC. He thought William ‘should have been out earlier and Donald should have stayed longer’ in the Marathon Dance. Louis would have given it to Katherine or Donald. Below are some of his thoughts on the individual dances. See if you don’t agree and be sure to read more at the link. I think Louis pretty much pegs it again and puts it all into words I couldn’t find. Don’t forget that Louis will be dancing again tonight in a Pro number.

Maria Menounos and Derek Hough’s Foxtrot. That’s a fast foxtrot. Maria did a great job. It’s a shame about the little mishap on the stairs. Great frame, very good posture and as a couple they moved nicely and smoothly across the floor. I do feel Maria is quite stiff and needs to loosen up if she wants to go to the finals. In the hold, Maria is solid, but when Derek lets her go she looks pretty tight and insecure. I agree with Len’s first part “In hold,” but “NOT in hold.” It wasn’t as great. As a matter of fact, that’s where Maria lost her footing. I agree with Carrie Ann’s score – three “8′s” in my book.

Roshon Fagan and Chelsie Hightower’s Rumba. This was a very solid performance by Roshon. He looked very comfortable in this routine, awesome arm lines. The momentum in one of the turns caused a very slight lift. Roshon attacked this Rumba a little hard sometimes which sacrificed some of the tenderness and sensuality that is so important for the Rumba. It was very age appropriate though. Carrie Ann, wow, now you’re going to be the lift police after so many other competitors did lifts before and you didn’t mention anything. Even though the judges had a weird way of criticizing Roshon, I do agree with them. The judges could have been a little less aggressive about it. The scores are low-ish. I’d say the scores should have been the same as Maria, three “8′s.” (In my opinion, Maria should have gotten three “8′s.”)

Katherine Jenkins and Mark Ballas’ Samba. This was another beautiful performance by Katherine. She just doesn’t have a bad movement in her body. There were a lot of great technical elements in that routine, with a good, solid bounce. I’m going to be a little more critical of Katherine right now (In my opinion, in comparison, she’s already better than anyone else). Katherine can finish her legs off better when closing her feet and when doing a Latin dance she should express it differently from her ballroom dances. Everything is always “pretty.” I sometimes want to see the differences — sultry, hot, rough, sweet, bitchy, sensitive. She can show more variety. I like what Carrie Ann said, although I would have liked to see a bit more ‘In your face’. A little over-scored. Three “9′s,” in my opinion, but since Maria got such high scores two “10s” are deserved in comparison.

Donald Driver and Peta Murgatroyd’s Foxtrot. Is Donald really a football player? He’s not a dancer? Donald totally impressed me again tonight with his dance. It had great Foxtrot content. He had a great frame and let’s not even get started on Donald’s charisma. It was strong when it needed to be and soft when the time was right. Awesome job, especially knowing he’s not a performer, dancer, singer, actor at all — and yet he does it all with ease. And another great costume! I totally agree with Bruno. That was cute, Len! I agree with Len that Donald can do more. Get your freestyle music! Well deserved scores. If they would have given one “10,” I would have agreed.

ET interviewed the couples on their dances. Gladys is happy. Roshon is a little down (can’t say as I blame him!). Melissa wasn’t happy with her and Maks’ package. Lots more below. It’s so good to see Steve Jones of the X Factor again.

Lastly, Tristan has a great new blog up at Entertainment Weekly explaining he and Gladys’ dances. Here is a little excerpt. See if you don’t agree with some of the things he said too about the judges?

On the “My Girl” rumba: We were hoping for a faster dance but the rumba’s what we got. We got a great song, and we got to dance to the Temptations. I was annoyed by some of the comments the judges made. They put me in a fierce bad mood afterwards. What Bruno said about wanting a more steamy dance — I thought that was stupid. It wasn’t about being steamy and hot, and no one wants to see me steamy with Gladys.

I don’t think it was appropriate. They said, well maybe you’re not the best dancer, and things needed to be more steamy. Being steamy doesn’t make anyone a better dance either, does it? That’s just a gimmick. I think a lot of it is about performance. That’s what really annoyed me. It was a tribute to Motown and that’s what we did. So the way we took the rumba was that the passionate side and the love that you’re supposed to portray in rumba, that was directed towards Motown. It should have been marked on the dance and not marked on flamboyance.

Chelsie and Roshon were underscored immensely for what they’d done. I thought they were great, know what I mean? There just needs to be consistency somewhere and there definitely needs to be a bit of common sense in places as well. So as much as people are saying about Len, he’s this and he’s that — he knew that the appropriateness of what should have happened tonight, and Bruno and Carrie Ann should have known that as well.

On that purple suit: The funny thing was, I wanted to try to put Gladys in as many colors as possible, and she really liked purple. The Temps wore purple all the time. So that’s how I stole that costume. If you put in “The Temptations My Girl” it goes to the song on YouTube [embedded below] — you can see even from the movie that they have purple suits. The whole look itself was, again, part of the tribute. My look was David Ruffin’s, the lead singer on this song. That was the look that he had, they were his glasses and stuff.

Ok, that is all for now. Here’s to tonight’s results. I’m curious to see if two of the contestants will be eliminated? I hope not. Also, stay tuned to Heidi’s Numbers post coming up a little later with her predictions which are always fascinating and entertaining as well!! 😉

I'm a fashion and music fan....and I have always loved dancing too of any kind. Dancing With The Stars seems to have this way of bringing all of those things together. One of my favorite dancing quotes at the moment: "No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you've already had...." ~Gleb Savchenko . For fun music and dance mixes, visit WilUnleashed Soundcloud. To view my photography site, see Lisa Kay Photography.